Request By:
Gaynor E. Hatfield, R.N.
President, Kentucky Board of Nursing
4010 Dupont Circle, Suite 430
Louisville, Kentucky 40207
Opinion
Opinion By: Steven L. Beshear, Attorney General; By: Carl Miller, Assistant Attorney General
You have requested an opinion of the Attorney General as to whether the release of the scores by name of persons who took the State Board Test to the school they graduated from would be in violation of the "privacy act".
Kentucky has no privacy act and the Federal Privacy Act has no application to state agencies. As we pointed out in OAG 76-573 (copy enclosed) Kentucky has no statute setting up a general right of privacy as to scores made on licensing board examinations. This does not mean, however, that a state agency cannot adopt a policy of withholding examination results to protect the privacy of the applicants who took the examination. The Kentucky Open Records Act exempts from mandatory disclosure by a public agency --
"Public records containing information of a personal nature where the public disclosure thereof would constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy." KRS 61.878(1)(a).
There is no statute compelling an agency to observe this exemption and no penalty provided for releasing information of a private nature. The Kentucky Board of Nursing can adopt and follow its own consistent policy as to whether to respect the request of certain examinees not to release their scores by name to the school they graduated from.